The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley
with Marietje Schaake
With Elon Musk taking over more and more of our government every day and ousting anyone who is not a strict loyalist, many have begun to ask when the right to free speech will falter. However, some technology experts say that the process began when we started to lose control and understanding of the algorithms that amplify certain voices while suppressing others and lulling the rest of us into a hypnotic trance of scrolling. “A lot of what generative AI can achieve in terms of producing deceptive content is supported by the same old, what Shoshana Zuboff called surveillance capitalism driven platforms, where the algorithmic amplification is key to reach large audiences without being transparent,” said Marietje Schaake, “So, you know, all users of X have seen a difference since Elon Musk took over. Some may be happy about it. Some may be very sad about it, but it’s undeniably a different place. What is hard to verify is how Musk tweaked the algorithm to support voices he wants to surface.” She then noted that this is most likely a combination of the firing of critical safety teams and the algorithm’s modifications.
On this episode of Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum, I spoke with Schaake about her book published last year through Princeton University Press titled The Tech Coup: How to Save Democracy from Silicon Valley. She is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. As a Dutch politician, she also served as a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands between 2009 and 2019. She was appointed to the United Nations High-Level Advisory Body on AI in 2023.
